Reflecting the light and shade of summer, the catwalk this season was dominated by two tones. Whether in pyjama-like tailoring (see Haider Ackermann), ladylike silhouettes (Valentino) or the new sophisticated take on rock ‘n’ roll (Isabel Marant), black & white is more in style than ever.

Reflecting the light and shade of summer, the catwalk this season was dominated by two tones. Whether in pyjama-like tailoring, ladylike silhouettes or the new take on rock 'n' roll, black & white is more in style than ever.

Even the architect admits it conjures images of "an abandoned spacecraft". But there is more to the Shell House by Tokyo-based practice Artechnic than just radical styling. We tour the weekend home for the 21st century.

As London's V&A Museum presents the first retrospective of the career of David Bowie, we take a virtual tour of the show and showcase a montage of videos that capture his talent for innovation in music, fashion, art and film.

"Innovative" and "timeless" were the words repeatedly used by the Pritzker Prize jury in its announcement of Japanese architect Toyo Ito as its 2013 recipient. We showcase his most groundbreaking projects.

The next generation of city cars and bikes are ultra small vehicles that are the result of big ideas in space saving, logistics and the environment. We showcase three of the cleverest, including Philippe Starck's new bike/scooter hybrid.

As the work of Irish artist, furniture designer and architect Eileen Gray continues to command staggering prices at auction, her influence is being showcased in a retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

It's the ultimate trophy home for architecture aficionados and design connoisseurs: the 1959 Hailey Residence by master of mid-century modernism Richard Neutra. We make a virtual visit to the Los Angeles house.

The world's most talented watchmakers looked to the future to present groundbreaking innovations at this year’s Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie, the annual Geneva watch fair which took place in January.

The first major European exhibition of the work of Chinese painter Yue Minjun reveals that there is more to the artist's oeuvre than his iconic images of laughing characters that are a caricature of the homogenization of Chinese society.

Can't make it to LA for the last few weeks of the Getty's spectacular show dedicated to American photography master Ray K. Metzker? We showcase the highlights and look at the market for Metzker's signature images.

The latest in a series of close collaborations between Prada and OMA is a vision for The Ideal House, which was the title of the Prada men's catwalk show and its sneak preview of a new furniture collection designed by OMA for Knoll.

For a San Francisco-based art collector, architect Rick Joy constructed a weekend home in the Arizona desert that comprises of a village-like compound of just three separate steel cubes, each with one wall of glass.

With new galleries and books dedicated to jewelry created by artists as well as a new generation of artists moving from the canvas to the necklace, we showcase a curated jewelry box of mini masterpieces.

A new Assouline book reveals the story behind legendary jeweler Nardi – famous for its iconic Moretti brooches with gem encrusted turbans – which was conceived in the 1930s as a place to buy "luxury souvenirs of Venice".

Some of the world's greatest architects have turned their hands to small-scale blueprints for collections of contemporary cutlery. From Achille Castiglioni to Zaha Hadid, we showcase a slice of the sharply designed flatware on offer.

A revived Paris destination for art de vivre created by traditional artisans to contemporary designs is one of our favourite boutiques of 2012. We talk to the owner and creative director of Compagnie Française de l'Orient et de la Chine.

The instantly recognizable rock sculptures of Arik Levy are shown alongside his lesser known work in a new exhibition at Paris' Passge de Retz gallery. In an exclusive interview, the artist explains why Nothing is Quite as it Seems.

In her latest exhibition of nature-inspired decorative arts, the multidisciplinary artist Joy de Rohan Chabot has once again mastered new techniques to create a forest of aluminium sculpted branches, frosted glass stalactites and more.

Architecture for Dogs is a new pawject curated by Kenya Hara, the creative director of Muji, which brings together 13 starchitects each briefed to design a structure for a specific breed of dog. We showcase the barkitecture on offer.

A new collaboration between Peugeot Design Lab and artisan French piano maker Pleyel has composed a baby grand with radical innovations in mechanical acoustics and sound quality that match its avant garde form. We take a tinkle.

A house in the Portuguese archipelago of Azores is named after a Leonardo da Vinci manuscript and is conceived around womb-like qualities for a structure that is a striking assemblage of curves and blocks.

The entirely bespoke McLaren X-1 commissioned by an enthusiastic collector was inspired by everything from the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright to black and white images of Audrey Hepburn for "timeless and classical elegance".